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Two things on my mind this week.  Well, three actually.  First, feeling guilty that I didn’t write a blog last week.  It’s strange how I have to be motivated, pissed off, or concerned about a topic to cover it here.  Kind of like now that I’m in my 40s, I can’t go in the pool unless I am really hot.

So my guilt is now off my chest and I will continue to work on being a human who doesn’t feel guilty.

Yesterday I read an email by a colleague about a campaign on campus encouraging students that it’s ok not to drink.  Part of the campaign will involve staff and students wearing t-shirts that express this notion.  My colleague asked us to sign-up with our t-shirt size. I called her and asked her what type of t-shirts they were.  She replied “non gendered t-shirts.”

First I have to say that this colleague, and dear friend of mine, is most definitely a radical feminist.  I would never question this.  However, I have been someone, over my almost 22 years in higher education, who has become a true hater of the “non gendered t-shirt.”  Let’s deconstruct this.  These t-shirts, first of all, are NOT non-gendered.  They were designed for men, plain and simple.  If you are a woman with no boobs and no hips, yeah, sure, you can probably look okay in a small or a medium, but if you have a woman’s shapely body, in anyway, you’re in trouble.  First, the t-shirts are always too long.  If you try to fit one according to length, they probably won’t fit your chest, or you’ll look like a pancake.  If you try to fit one according to your chest size, it’s probably going to look like you’re wearing a mini-dress or a mu-mu. 

I’m not sure why a men’s t-shirt is somehow considered the “neutral” t-shirt, particularly in student affairs where we buy t-shirts all the time.  All my colleagues think I’m over-the-top, but this is another way, as a society, we expect women to conform to what we think is neutral or normal, like all those gendered words:  freshman, chairman, mankind, etc.

There are so many other examples of this.  Cars.  Cars are made with men’s bodies in mind.  There is no place to put your pocketbook.  It comes slamming off the passenger seat if you have to stop suddenly.  Seat belts that aren’t adjustable cross by your neck if you are a petite woman.  I’d love to hear more examples of this from my followers.  Even my desk at work is designed for a man.  For me to sit properly at my computer I have to keep my feet on a foot rest because they can’t reach the floor.  And I’m not THAT short!

And we buy these men’s t-shirts in the name of cost-savings.  We frugal student affairs practitioners say “I can’t afford to order two TYPES of t-shirts.  It would be too expensive.”  I’m just asking that we think about how what we often call non-gender is really gendered. And as for me, I’ll wear a men’s t-shirt if only I can re-purpose it to look cute. (Repurpose a men’s t-shirt) 

My second Ax to grind is really about AXE Body spray, gel, soap, cologne, or whatever they encourage boys and men to wear.  Their commercials are so sexist they make me want to puke.  The latest one explains that women, I mean, GIRLS, are getting hotter and hotter, which is a world crisis.   There are so many things wrong with this commercial.  First of all, to equate women’s attractiveness with a world crisis when there are people being slaughtered in the Middle East is ethnocentric.  Second, they refer to women as girls, which shows they are marketing to a young male market.   And I’m shocked more men are not complaining that not only are these advertisements sexist but that they make men look like idiots and bumbling fools.  Seriously.   Make sure you’re not having breakfast or lunch as you watch this.  

I often write about the media’s effect on women. I rarely write about my own feelings about my body. This past week, however, I had a very interesting conversation with a group of women about their bodies. To avoid naming names, I will describe them this way.

All of these women are smart and have very good professional jobs. One runs a large nonprofit organization, one is vice president of a financial institution, one was her college class valedictorian, and I have a doctorate.

Betty hates her body. She says it’s lumpy. She has two children who are mostly grown up. But she is very insecure about her belly. She goes out of her way to snack all day long on specific types of food in order to keep her belly from feeling bloated. What she nibbles on all day would leave me nauseous because I would be so hungry. And she is very self-conscious about the way she looks. In my eyes, she is a skinny, pretty woman.

Jane, like Betty, is very careful about what she eats. She’s a vegan, so not only does she eat very little, she only eats beans and veggies. She is also very concerned about feeling bloated. She is less “dysmorphic” than Betty but is very attuned to her body’s changes and strict with her diet.

Sally loves her body. She thinks her boobs are too small but she knows she’ll never have the “perfect” body as it is a myth. She’s cute and comfortable in her skin. And I will add, out of the four of us, she is a woman of color.

And then there’s me. So there’s a lot I love about my body. My legs. My hair. My ass is okay, while a little flat. I’m told I have great tits, but they are definitely a little too big to be lugging around my whole life and have certainly contributed to my shoulder issues as I’ve aged. My stomach is the source of my “dysmorphia,” but we have had a bad relationship since I was in high school and was what one would call skinny. It is what it is, although as I have moved into my 30s and 40s, I’ve certainly had to be more careful about WHAT I put into my body as gaining weight comes much more easily than it did in my 20s.

So what’s the point of Jane’s, Betty’s, and Sally’s body hatred you might ask? I guess what is most illuminating about this conversation is how obsessed these very smart women (particularly Betty and Jane) are about their bodies. They spend a good deal of time fretting over how they look and what they eat, and when I look at them, I see very smart, beautiful women. I just wonder how much time they could spend doing other things to change the world if a little less time was spent worrying about their body size or the size of their bellies. 

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Kaitlyn Hunt is an 18 year old high school senior from Florida.  She was arrested, once she turned 18, for statutory rape, or what they are calling lewd and lascivious battery of a child 12 to 16 years of age.  The police taped a conversation with Kaitlyn and her girlfriend.  The relationship occurred, according to Hunt’s father, when the two were 14 and 16, but the younger girlfriend’s parents waited until Kaitlyn turned 18 and had her arrested.  They have offered a plea deal “that would allow her to avoid registering as a sex offender if she pleads guilty to lesser charges of child abuse. State Attorney Bruce Colton said he would recommend two years of house arrest followed by one year probation if she takes the deal.”

There is a lot going on in this case.  And I’m not sure where I stand on it, except that I know I had two relationships with seniors when I was a freshman in high school.  One of those seniors turned 18 while we were dating and my parents could easily have accused him of statutory rape (if they knew we were sexually active, which they didn’t, at the time).  But they never would have done so.  I was in love.  They knew that.  They knew we were teenagers, even though one of us did turn the “official” age of 18.

I do not think statutory rape laws were put in effect to disallow teenagers from having relationships with each other.  They were put in effect to keep young women from being prayed upon by older men.  I think of the 21+ year old and the 15 year old.  

Or is this just about a young girl’s parents being totally freaked out that she’s possibly a lesbian?  I think so.  To go and ruin her “friend’s” life without ever even talking to her or the parents seems very strange.  An intelligent, caring and mature parent would have asked the Hunt family to come over and discuss the issue and tell Kaitlyn she couldn’t see their daughter again until their daughter was 18 or something like that.  Now that would make sense.

The whole situation seems very sad to me and I can only hope the Judge who hears this case sees it the same way.  See more here.

What do you think?  Is this rape?  Do 18 year old seniors need to only have intimate relationships with people their age or older?  Realistically how often does this happen? 

Silver Linings Playbook has, rightfully, received much praise for its superb, nuanced acting and its sensitive, engaging portrayal of mental illness. The film follows Pat, a 35-year-old man (Bradley Cooper) with bipolar disorder, as he returns home to live with his parents following an eight-month court-mandated hospitalization. Pat is desperate to reconnect with his estranged wife, but meets and forms a complicated relationship with Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a woman with her own emotional issues.

‘SLP’ was nominated in all seven major Oscar categories, including picture, director, adapted screenplay and all four acting categories; it was the first film in more than 30 years to achieve that distinction. Jennifer Lawrence, the lead actress, won an Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG award for her stellar performance. The film also garnered praise from the mental health community. Katrina Gay, Director of Communications at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the film: “Making a film about mental illness is tricky: It can sensationalize, trivialize or exploit it…. But Silver Linings Playbook not only entertains us, it shows us how alike we all really are. The characters are quirky and likable. This film allows the audience to relate to the characters and the story. It’s way more effective than a campaign or banner project.” To see more click here. 

Despite these accolades, I had my doubts. Most portrayals of mental illness in popular film/TV/media are uninformed and stigmatizing. I find romantic comedies formulaic and anti-feminist. (I was the person you heard gagging in the theatre when Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) proclaimed his love for Dorothy (Renée Zellweger) with the now famous line, “You complete me.”) To my delight, director David O. Russell and his cast got it (largely) right. To my surprise, the film also prompts us to critically examine our limited—and limiting—definitions of masculinity and femininity.

Bitch Flicks blogger Stephanie Rogers notes the film takes, “…a subtle jab at the cult of masculinity in America. The conflicts in the film are often caused by male anger and aggression, and several scenes even conclude with male violence—like when Pat’s rage fit with his dad leads him to (albeit accidentally) hit his mother in the face, or when he throws a book through a window because he hates the ending… The film makes it perfectly clear that this style of hyper masculine conflict resolution ain’t getting anybody anywhere.” Check out this cool site here. 

The film also takes on “slut-shaming”. In a flashback scene, Pat comes home from work to find his wife having sex with another man in the shower. Pat responds by almost killing the man, an act which ultimately leads to Pat’s hospitalization. (Providing yet another example of how the film calls out male violence.) Despite her infidelity, Pat loves his wife and she is never vilified for the affair. Additionally, Tiffany—who readily admits to having had and enjoyed sex with both men and women—is labeled a slut by Pat, his family, and everyone else who is keeping score. Rather than apologizing for or rationalizing her sexual history, Tiffany owns it: “There’s always going to be a part of me that’s sloppy and dirty, but I like that, with all the other parts of myself. Can you say the same about yourself?” Bitch Flicks blogger Stephanie Rogers writes, “In an industry where being the ‘promiscuous girl’ is synonymous with ‘one who dies first’, this kind of rhetoric is revolutionary.”

Let’s hope so.

Beth-Anne Vieira is the Assistant Director of Health Services, Health Education & Promotion at UMass Dartmouth. In her free time she and her husband are raising two feminist sons. She enjoys reading, baking, pinning, and dreams one day of writing a book.

A friend and colleague of mine wanted to write about a movie that she really loved.  I suggested she be our Guest Blogger on The Feminist Critic this week.  Check back later today for her post.  And now you can subscribe via email to my blog and get updates without seeing the link on facebook!

Thanks for reading!

I didn’t watch the Academy Awards this year.  I couldn’t.  First of all, my partner hates any award show, even though he will watch it if I want to.  Second of all, I am just so pissed at how NO women directors got nominated AGAIN, that I had my own kind of silent boycott. 

So when I came into work on Monday and my lovely Programming Assistant immediately has me You Tube Seth MacFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs” musical number.  More research into it tells me that the producers actually added the cutaways of the women looking shocked into the song. He then introduces the LA Gay Men’s Chorus (why are THEY singing a song about boobs anyway?) and quickly states that’s “he’s not gay.”  It might have worked if there was a counter number called “We Saw Your Cock.”  There is a post-Oscar version similar to that here.  But that wouldn’t happen because you never see male genitalia unless it is X rated. Women’s breasts are definitely PG. 

Some more research into how Seth MacFarlane did tells us that he told jokes about Latina women, Penelope Cruz and Selma Hayek, mocking their accents and saying it didn’t matter that we can’t understand them because they are so beautiful.

He referenced an orgy taking place later at no other than Jack Nicholson’s house, reminiscent of 1977 Roman Polanski’s rape of a 13 year old (that took place there).  He made a joke about “all black people looking the same” comparing Denzel Washington and Eddie Murphy.  He talked about Adele being fat.  He used his movie character Ted to talk about how Jewish Hollywood is in the most anti-Semitic skit possible.  And he referenced domestic violence pointing out Rianna and Chris Brown.

To be sure, I think Mr. MacFarlane is one of the most talented young people in Hollywood today.  He writes, he acts, he sings, and he produces.  RISD, our local arts school, definitely gave him a solid education.  He is better and smarter than the below the belt humor he used while hosting the Oscars.  He could have been much more creative and classy.

But I don’t blame MacFarlane alone.  Someone produces this shit and it wasn’t him. They approved whatever crap script was put together for this event.  Someone hires the producers who produced that shit and they were definitely connected to the all too white all too male Academy that continues,  85 years later to degrade women, people of color and anyone who doesn’t fit into their privileged powerful club.  It’s a mockery of the creative abilities and progressive belief systems of most of the people who were nominated or who were in the room.  Tsk.  Tsk.  Tsk. 

Melissa McCarthy’s cousin Jenny defended her this week by telling film critic Rex Reed to go to hell.  Most of you might know that the elderly film critic Rex Reed critiqued the comedy Identity Thief, by referring to lead actress Melissa McCarthy’s  “cacophonous, tractor-sized,” a “female hippo,” and dismissed her as “a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with equal success.”

If that’s not bad enough, he then went on to DEFEND his sizist comments “to using health issues like obesity as comedy talking points. That’s what this girl does, this Melissa Manchester.” (Her name is Meslissa McCarthy). He then uses the I-have-fat-friends-disclaimer “I have too many friends that have died of obesity-related illnesses, heart problems and diabetes… I have helped people try to lose weight, and I don’t find this to be the subject of a lot of humor.”

Let’s think of all the movies we have ever seen that have lead males who would be considered plus size (funny that term is NEVER used to men, eh?).  Then google how many of them were critiqued for being too large to be good actors.  Was John Candy’s work in Planes, Trains and Automobiles panned because he was a cacophonous, tractor-sized, male hippo?  What about Belushi?  Chris Farley?  George Wendt?  Dom Delouise?  John Goodman?  Wayne Knight?  Johah Hill? 

We could easily come up with more, I am certain.  Until women’s talents and intelligence are not connected to what she looks like or her size, we will never be able to compete on equal footing with men.  Never.  I think people in Hollywood should blackball Rex Reed, tell him to go to Florida and retire his sexist, fat hating self.